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Reliquary of the Enlightened Man

15/01/18 17:05

“Reliquary of the Enlightened Man” 20.75x25.875x5” Acrylic on panel paintings, wood, acrylic, polymer clay. A new addition to my Dankquart Collection of faux antiquities. I designed this piece to feature painted panels mounted in doors that would work together with a base panel to form one image, whether open or closed. Each door panel painting has its own subject and center of interest, yet elements of the door panel artwork blend together to form a large sphere hovering over a landscape. When the doors are opened the narrative advances. The subject of each exterior panel “changes” and the landscape stretches out as the center panel is revealed.

The piece developed from a sketchbook drawing of the center panel. Once I had the subjects in mind I began to layout the way in which they would interact, although I didn’t begin painting until the enclosure’s construction was far enough along to temporarily place the panels. That way I could draw (and later paint) knowing how things would line up. There are five paintings on three panels and I was often working on all of them simultaneously which got to be tricky at times.

The two beetles and bone at the base of the enclosure are sculpted from polymer clay. I used a rabbit bone from my collection as a guide when applying layers of acrylic paint and glaze to the sculpted bone. I didn’t want the banner to simply lay flat to the enclosure so I gave it a bit of a raised area toward the center and then curled the ends back around so that they almost resemble horns.

I’ve posted more photos with some details of the panels and sculpts here under my Dankquart Collection section of the website. I did a few in progress posts on Instagram as I worked on this piece as well, you can see them here, https://www.instagram.com/walkerbrushworks/ and please consider following me on Instagram if you’re so inclined.